Jason’s attorney hadn’t gotten an official assurance that he wouldn’t be charged criminally, but she said that wasn’t unusual. You either got charged or you didn’t.
Rachel had stopped coming to work, as one would expect, but it had been three days since the news broke, and she hadn’t filed a formal complaint with the university or done anything else to pursue the matter. The three remaining interns—including Wilson Stewart—told Zack that they assumed Rachel was embarrassed that her complaint had spiraled so out of control. The dean had not asked for any further meetings with Jason after their initial conversation about the police report. Jason hadn’t lost any clients. He had even managed to record an episode of his podcast without mentioning the scandal.
By the time I finished cleaning up after dinner, it actually felt like the incident might be in our rearview mirror.
In retrospect, I must have felt like we were safely back into our normal life, because I believed Jason when he told me that I had no reason to worry when the police knocked on our door that night.
It was three knocks, actually. The sound of the brass gargoyle against wood is full and aggressive, not to be ignored.
I was doing my nighttime ritual early that night, right after dinner. It seemed to gain an extra step with each additional year of my life as a woman—cleanser, toner, moisturizer, eye cream, neck serum, flossing, and brushing. I froze on instinct.
I imagined the hand holding the knocker. Wondered who the hand belonged to. Wondered if they were alone.
And then I heard Jason letting someone in. Did he even pause to ask who it was? Did he look through the peephole to see whether the fish-eyed face on the other side of the distorting lens appeared to be male or female?
It was an argument we’d had before. That was back when he was still suggesting that I “talk to someone” about these lingering anxieties. I’ve told him it has nothing to do with the past. It’s rational for me to be more afraid than he is.
What is it like to live without fear? Jason has tried to help me be more like him, unafraid, comforted by statistics showing that the odds of “people like us” becoming crime victims were at an all-time low. I try to help him understand that being like him is a luxury. Fear isn’t rational, it’s primal. And if he wanted to talk about statistics, he needed to look at two factors: the odds of something going wrong, yes; but also the severity of the harm should it in fact occur. In the real world, Jason might be the one who opened the door to a stranger, but I—statistically, I, as the only woman in the house—would be the one who truly suffered.
So when he let some person into our home, I stood on the landing, toothbrush still in hand, mouth full of foam, and listened with all my might. I couldn’t make out the words, but the voice was female. Kneeling down, I saw two dark, fleshy calves. She was wearing black flats and a knee-length navy skirt. I walked to our bedroom window and looked down to the street. A generic light-colored sedan was blocking our driveway. I knew immediately it was a police car.
“Jason?” I called out. “Is everything okay?” I thought about Spencer in his room and hoped that he had his Beats headphones blasting, as usual.
Jason walked halfway up the stairs to speak to me. Unlike the house I grew up in, in this home we do not yell from room to room—one of the Mom Rules.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“I guess there was an incident down the street.”
He must have noticed me flinch at the word incident, because he quickly clarified: “A fight of some sort. They’re canvassing the neighborhood for witnesses. I told them we stayed in for dinner and hadn’t seen anything. They’re gone now.”
He brushed my hair from the back of my neck and gave me a soft kiss. I smelled his soap and Pert shampoo. I actually believed his explanation.
But later that night, once we were in bed, I had that feeling in the pit of my stomach again. I couldn’t sleep. I wrapped Jason’s hand in mine and took a deep breath.
He could tell I was anxious. He told me everything was fine. He asked me if I wanted to play the alphabet game. “We can do vacation,” he offered. He knows it’s my favorite.
I found myself smiling and started with A: Anguilla. He added beach. I followed with colada. The last word I remembered that night was iguana. I fell asleep with my mind in the Caribbean.
But by the time I woke up the next morning, I realized what should have been obvious all along: police don’t block a family’s driveway with an unmarked car on a fishing expedition for witnesses to a random assault.
After Spencer left for school, I walked down to the pay phone at the corner of Eighth Street and University, called the Sixth Precinct, and said I was wondering whether they’d identified the culprits involved in the assault on our block the previous night. “I’m a mom. I want to make sure my kids are safe,” I added for good measure. When they asked for my address, I gave them the apartment building two doors down from our carriage house.
“You said this was last night?” the woman asked.
“Yes, all the neighbors were talking about it. The police were going door to door a little before eight, looking for witnesses.”
“Nope, I’m not seeing anything in your area last night. Sounds like someone on your block started a rumor. People will do anything for attention these days.”
I replaced the phone in its cradle, knowing for the first time in my marriage that Jason had lied to me, right to my face, as if it were nothing.
19
The young woman at the concierge desk was race-ambiguous, with close-cropped bleached hair, deep-set eyes, and light brown skin. The black collared shirt of her uniform was buttoned all the way up, but Corrine could see the curve of a tattoo peeking from the side of her neck. Corrine gave a quick flash of her badge and said she was there to see the head of security.
She noticed an older couple at the reception counter next to her exchange a nervous look. “Nothing to worry about,” she assured them. “Welcome to New York.”
The hotel in question was the W in midtown. Kerry Lynch’s company was based in Nassau County on Long Island, but she frequently stayed in the city overnight when she came in for meetings. In response to a subpoena, the hotel’s general counsel had asked the security department to pull surveillance videos from the night Kerry said she was attacked by Jason Powell.
Corrine was a big fan of surveillance cameras, but she could do without the private security guards who tended to come as part of the package. She was anticipating the inevitable questions. How long had she been on the job? What did she do before she was a cop? She told herself that it was the usual banter between wannabe cops and the real thing. But part of her always felt like she was being quizzed for another reason, as if it were her obligation to prove that this black woman deserved to have a detective’s badge and gun instead of the polyester uniform of an unarmed security guard.
She heard a booming voice behind her. “I think I recognize that Duncan Donut.” Her last name always had provided a convenient nickname for a police officer.
Corrine turned to see a familiar face, slightly rounder and older than the last time she’d seen it. Shane Fletcher had been her sergeant when she first moved into the detective squad. “Well, oh my goodness. We are seriously dragging down the coolness factor in this lobby right here.”
“Tell me about it. The concierges tease me because they’d never seen a man wear pleated slacks before.”
“Hate to break it to you, but they probably make fun of you for using the word slacks, too. What are you doing working at a snazzy hotel?”
“Turns out retirement is boring as a bag of rocks. The wife’s the one who figured out a hotel gig comes with major travel perks. Went to Vieques last month, heading to Indonesia in August.” Fletcher pulled a folded sheet of paper from his suit pocket. “I almost called you when I saw your name on the subpoena. Figured I’d surprise you instead. You ready to watch some movies?”